Relatives of ‘Panna’ Ismail, one of the two terror suspects arrested in the recent Puttur operation, have claimed that Ismail was innocent and it is the repeated police harassment that destroyed their lives.
While police are attributing a series of murders and a bomb blast to Ismail, his wife Shameen Banu painted a picture of Ismail as a man from an average middle-class family, whose priority in life was to own a house and take care of his family. “I have lived with him for seven years and I know him better than anybody else. He does not have any extreme ideological leanings. His only aim is to save money and own a house,” Banu said, speaking to Express.
She has been camping in the city along with her son, S Ahmed Yaseen, but has so far been unsuccessful in meeting her husband, who was receiving treatment in a city hospital for bullet wounds. Ismail was a resident of Melapalayam in Tirunelveli city and Banu said he worked as a house broker in the city to earn a living.
She said, trouble began when Ismail was arrested in a murder case about six years ago over a financial transaction in Melapalayam. While he was acquitted by a court, Ismail was in the bad books of the local police. Since then, police would regularly pick him up. “For the last six years, he was being continuously taken into custody by police and was physically and mentally tortured. He left the city about six months ago as the frequent arrest affected his work badly. He left for Chennai to join some work. He was regularly sending money orders. But suddenly, police declared him a fugitive and published his photos in all newspapers. After that, he snapped his contacts with me,” said Banu.
She says the local police was well aware that he was in Tirunelveli when the alleged murders attributed to him took place.
“All I want now is to see him once to make sure he is alive. I can’t understand why police are not allowing us to even see him. One day I received a letter from the prison department granting us permission to meet him. But after waiting for the whole day, they refused to allow us,” she said.
Being Framed: Malik
Meanwhile, in Vellore terror suspect Bilal Malik, who was produced before the Judicial Magistrate’s Court- III, Vellore, by the CB-CID team after his 11-day police custody ended on Thursday, was remanded to the Vellore Central Prison for Men under judicial custody.
Malik Bilal on Thursday gave a statement before judge of JM Court-III (in-charge) P Revathy. After Malik was brought to the court, he pleaded before the judge urging her to allow him to speak to her for 10 minutes. Bilal Malik’s counsel Pugalendhi said he reportedly made complaints to the judge against the CB-CID police that they had threatened him to confess to the crime, recorded and videographed his statements and clicked photographs of him. The CB-CID police also obtained his signature on a few documents, alleged Pugalendhi. The judge also took note of Malik’s statement and recorded it, he said and claimed that Malik told the judge that he was falsly implicated in the case.
The Judge denied furnishing the statement of Malik to his advocate stating that it was a conversation between her and the accused and was confidential, said Pugalendhi, adding, “The judge refused to furnish a copy of Malik’s statement when I asked for it. The judge told me to file an application requesting for the statement,” said Pugalendhi.
Malik was produced before the Judicial Magistrate’s Court- III, Vellore, by the CB-CID team after his 11-day police custody ended. He was remanded to the Vellore Central Prison for Men under judicial custody.
The 25-year-old terror suspect was nabbed along with his mentor ‘Panna’ Ismail from their hideout in Andhra Pradesh on October 5. He was produced before the judge of the JM Court-III P K Sivakumar on October 6. The judge had directed police to remand him under judicial custody till October 18.
(With inputs from J Shanmugha Sundaram)